Power Pit is in!

It has been a very busy week here, but things appear to be moving along nicely.

On Monday 25th, I was greeted on my way out to school by a large truck and a bloke with a jack hammer! Three guys had turned up to install the underground power pit. At the time I left, they were setting up the jack hammer to dig up the footpath where the pit was to go, and working out where the gas and water pipes were for our house, and the house next door. By the time I came back about an hour later, the footpath had been dug up and the back hoe was digging out the soil, and there was a trench in the nature strip next to the electricity pole.







I chatted to them for a while, and they explained everything they were doing...and even let my Son have a sit on the back hoe!



Just after midday, they were all packed up, having completed the instillation and 'mostly' cleaned up their mess. I actually got out there with the broom to finished sweeping a bit of remaining soil back on the nature strip.

And voila! We have underground power...although it won't be connected for a while!



Apart from the excitement out on the footpath, we have finally sent off our loan documents, received a letter to apply for 'Asset Protection' from the Council (footpaths, kerbs, council trees etc during the demo and rebuild), and redirected our mail. I also spent the best part of an hour on the phone to the Council to change our address for the cat rego, Telstra to disconnect the phone on Monday and put a 'reserve' on our phone number and Origin Energy to abolish the gas and electricity.

It's going to be an even busier weekend with moving, but I think I'm 'fairly' organised! (Famous last words... ;) )

Unconditional Loan Approval and First Post Contract Variation.

We have received a letter from our 'future' bank stating we have unconditional approval for our loan! Fantastic news, and we have also received our loan documents to sign too. How exciting!

We also received our first post contract variation from Henley, where all the issues we raised at the contract signing were amended. This included changing position of some lights, changing the wiring of other lights, swapping the study doors, making the study cupboard 820mm deep instead of 510mm, changing a couple of awning windows to sliding to match the rest of the elevations (except the front) and change the position of the extra power point in the garage to 1350mm instead of almost floor level. As it turns out, this post contract variation was free, and Henley now owe us $93!!

We signed it all and I dropped it into head office this morning.

I've also organised someone from the Council to assess the footpath to see how much we need to pay for an asset protection permit. At this stage, it looks as though it might be about an $1800 refundable bond.

In the meantime, the packing continues, as the storage place gets fuller and fuller, and our little house gets emptier and emptier. Busy times ahead, but I'm taking the weekend off and going to Adelaide for a Conference. A little piece of relaxation before the main move.

Pink Paint for a Power Pit!

...try saying that several times quickly! ;)



Great to see the fax went through to United Energy and I filled out the forms for a pit request correctly, since their attempt at faxing through the documents failed initially. Eventually email did the trick! So, we now have lovely pink paint work on the footpath out the front, marking the spot for the underground electrical pit. This is due to be installed on the 5th September (or there abouts!), and, hopefully, after we have moved out!

We have had several busy weekends recently. Along with the normal family commitments, we moved the rather large and extremely heavy TV unit into storage 2 weekends ago. With just the two of us tackling the beast, it took almost two hours to get it onto the trailer. We ended up having to jack it up so it was level with the trailer, then sliding it on. It's far too heavy to be picked up by 2 people. We did try ringing a couple of people to help, but no one was home!



Thankfully, at the storage place, it was much easier to drag it off the trailer and onto a set of cricket stumps, and literally roll it into the lockup. Hopefully when the time comes to move it again we will have some extra people power!

Last weekend we dismantled the cubby house on the Saturday and moved that into storage too. It would have been nice to have just left it, but the alfresco will be built partly on top of it, so it had to go!

Now you see it....


...now it's all packed away!


We had planned on moving a couple of other big pieces of furniture on the Sunday, but at the time we had spare...it rained and snowed on the nearby hills. So what did we do instead? Snow chasing, of course!

_

We've signed our life away...

Yesterday, the deed was done, and we signed on the dotted line! Well, actually we signed several dotted lines and initialled every page, making over 250 signatures! It all ran very smoothly, as did the pens.

We picked up on a few other mistakes in the electrical plan. This included the extra power point in the garage drawn at the incorrect height, the hallway two way switch was supposed to switch at the garage internal door (since that is the door we will mainly use to gain entry to the house), but it was drawn at the entrance instead. We also increased the study cupboard to 820mm depth, as it was drawn at 510mm. We also had the dining room windows (which were originally the lounge windows) changed to sliding to match the rest of the house. They had been drawn in as awning windows. I also queried the absence of the vent for the range hood on the elevation drawing. The vent for the powder room was there, but it is imperative that the range hood is externally vented...not into the ceiling space between the floors. We also swapped the position of the half door and the full door in the study, so the half door is on the same side as the cupboard door. This way, the half door can stay shut most of the time, and the cupboard can easily be opened.

Due to copyright reasons I will not be showing our floor plans with the dimensions on them, nor all of the elevation drawings. I have the front elevation, minus the dimensions, just to show what the house will look like with the cut and fill, and I have the publicly available floor plan as a basic feel of what it will be like.





We are looking at moving out in about 3 weeks, demo about 3 weeks after that, then it could be about 2 weeks minimum before site start. It won't be long now!!! Hopefully before Christmas we'll have a slab, frame and roof!

Fingers and toes are all crossed...

Contract and Drawings Received!

I got home on Friday to see a huge white courier delivered envelope sitting on the porch, and was terribly excited to see it! We have an awful lot of reading to do tonight as we go through everything, and make sure we understand everything.

It was great to finally see our drawings come together, especially the elevations. There are about 6 little issues we have discovered, but most are the positioning of the lights in certain rooms. The family room lights have been wired incorrectly to how we drew them on our electrical plan, and the hallway/kitchen doors open the wrong way (especially annoying as we stipulated they be opening the other way, and is written in our tender). One major concern we have is the depth of the cupboard we asked for in the Study. It's waaaay too shallow. We will also need to have the double doors swapped around so the smaller one is closer to the cupboard.

We hope these little issues won't impact too much on our contract signing, and hope they are rectified quickly so we can still sign...without having to spend any money on post contract variations.

I can't scan the elevations as the scanner has been packed and is now in storage! I may take a couple of pics of them and post them...but you'll have to wait! I have an awful lot of reading to do tonight!!!